This story is taken from Mary Johnston's novel, _To Have and to Hold_, which describes the early settlement of Virginia. The most important event of this period was the Indian massacre of 1622. For some years the whites and Indians had lived in peace, and it was believed that there would be no further trouble from the savages. However, Opechancanough, the head chief of the Powhatan confederacy, formed a plot against the white men and suddenly attacked them with great fury. Hundreds of the English settlers were slain. The author of the novel, taking the bare outline of the massacre as given in the early histories, has woven around it the graphic story of Captain Ralph Percy and his saving of the colony. Percy, unlike Miles Standish, is not a historical character. I. A man who hath been a soldier and adventurer into far and strange countries must needs have faced Death many times and in many guises. I had learned to know that grim countenance, and to have no great fear of it. The surprise of our sudden capture by the Indians had now worn away, and I no longer struggled to loose my bonds, Indian-tied and not to be loosened. Another slow hour and I bethought me of Diccon, my servant and companion in captivity, and spoke to him, asking him how he did. He answered from the other side of the lodge that was our prison, but the words were scarcely out of his mouth before our guard broke in upon us, commanding silence. It was now moonlight without the lodge and very quiet. The night was far gone; already we could smell the morning, and it would come apace. Knowing the swiftness of that approach and what the early light would bring, I strove for a courage which should be the steadfastness of the Christian and not the vainglorious pride of the heathen. Suddenly, in the first gray dawn, as at a trumpet's call, the village awoke. From the long communal houses poured forth men, women, and children; fires sprang up, dispersing the mist, and a commotion arose through the length and breadth of the place. The women made haste with their cooking and bore maize cakes and broiled fish to the warriors, who sat on the ground in front of the royal lodge. Diccon and I were loosed, brought without, and allotted our share of the food. We ate sitting side by side with our captors, and Diccon, with a great cut across his head, even made merry.